[INTERVIEW] Emily Brundige on the Heart & Humor of ‘Goldie’ for Apple TV+

February 16, 2025

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Emily Brundige is the Emmy and Annie-nominated creator behind the highly anticipated animated series Goldie, which premieres on Apple TV+ on February 14, 2025. Adapted from her award-winning 2019 short film of the same name, Goldie follows the adventures of a giant girl with a big heart in the whimsical town of Boysenberg, celebrating uniqueness and emotional honesty. With a stellar voice cast including Jessica McKenna and guest stars like Henry Winkler and “Weird Al” Yankovic, the series promises to be a heartwarming escape for families.

We sat down with Emily to discuss her journey in animation, what she learned writing for acclaimed shows like Hilda and Big Nate, and her experience bringing her own vision to life in her new series, Goldie.

Can you share a little about your animation journey and how you ended up making Goldie for Apple TV+?

EMILY BRUNDIGE: First of all, I grew up admiring people like Walt Disney, who made Disneyland, and Pee-wee Herman. Those were early inspirations to me. But then I, when I realized that animation was a passion of mine, I went to CalArts for graduate school and studied experimental animation. And while I was there, I created a short called Pupertina. And then later I pitched that short as a web series and got to make it for YouTube on a channel called Smosh or Shut Up! Cartoons. And then people really responded positively to that series. And there was a lot of interest in my pitching shows around town. So I think that was kind of my entryway, that web series into animation. And then since then, I’ve worked on a lot of different animated shows in development and as a writer and creator.

After the success with Goldie as the short, what was the process like developing ‘Goldie’ and her character into a full series? In a short, you usually only have time to handle one topic, but as you expand it out to a series, there’s more that you can tackle. So what aspects from the short did you want to carry over and explore more deeply?

EMILY BRUNDIGE: I think it was kind of a relief that I would be able to tell complete stories. Cause it’s actually challenging to write a short because you can only say so much. But with the series, I got to explore how Goldie with her oversized emotions could drive different kinds of stories as well as her friends. And a lot of these stories are about self-acceptance and friendship and kind of learning that being different is something to celebrate. So yeah, just being able to have these characters learn something by the end of the episode was nice. And also I wanted to feature a lot of songs and that’s something I got to do in the show.

Goldie-apple-tv-romeo-running-with-kite — Romeo (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) and Goldie (voiced by Jessica McKenna) in “Goldie,” premiering February 14, 2025 on Apple TV+.

What experience from working on previous animated series—story, writer, and creator—did you incorporate into the creation of Goldie?

EMILY BRUNDIGE: Well, I think something I learned just by way of working on all those shows was how important it is to tell character-driven stories and make sure that kind of the fundamentals of the stories are there before you can add the humor and the jokes and all that fun stuff. We have to be following a character’s POV and something they feel deeply about. So that’s something I learned working in the past decade, but also as a showrunner, being able to communicate and communicate your vision to a big crew, many different people who are working so hard on your project, you wanna make that as easy as possible for them. So being very clear about what you want and see for your show.

You worked with Mercury Filmworks, which is very accomplished independent animation studio with an impressive list of credentials. It must have been very exciting to have them as your studio. Tell us a little bit about the collaboration and working with them.

EMILY BRUNDIGE: Mercury was my number one studio I wanted to work with as our production studio. In order to work with them, because they were too busy at the time, we had to push the production schedule back a little bit so that I could work with them. But I had seen what they had done on Hilda and pretty much everything they’ve worked on always has a really high-quality product. And that’s what I found in working with them, was just that I was working with the most talented artists. My director, Graham McDonald, who was the animation director on the Mickey Mouse shorts, was just a dream partner. He put so much care into everything. And my art director was just like an art wizard. Ross Love, he just could draw anything. As we were having meetings, he would be doing little drawings like, “Oh, is this what you mean?” And so I think that high caliber of work made the production a lot easier for me because I could trust these excellent people with the project.

What do you hope that audiences—both children (ages six to 11) and adults—take away from watching Goldie?

EMILY BRUNDIGE: I think that the biggest takeaway that I would want to be is just that it feels like they’re getting a warm hug from the show and that it provides some kind of happy, bright, colorful escape from just kind of how things are right now and anything they’re struggling with, really.

What’s been the most rewarding part about creating Goldie the character, the short, and now the culmination of Goldie as the series?

EMILY BRUNDIGE: Well, the most rewarding part for one thing was getting to work with so many talented people from the writers to the actors to the animators and animation artists. That in itself was kind of a dream come true. And then secondly, I feel like I succeeded in creating a show that has my specific brand of humor, which is a lot more subtle, I think, than other shows that are a little like cartoonier, edgier. So yeah, both those things that it feels like a product of Emily Brundage.